


it's always like this

by wesnenski



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Late night castle sex, Porn with like... a LITTLE bit of plot, Secret Hookups, Sex against the wall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:29:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24792397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesnenski/pseuds/wesnenski
Summary: Lily doesn’t beg Regulus to step in. She doesn’t ask him to just dosomething, to intervene, to curse some bloody sanity into Severus before he’s past the point of no return. She knows he never would.Instead she leans in to kiss him.
Relationships: Regulus Black/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44





	it's always like this

Lily waits on the fourth floor, concealed in a shadowed alcove behind a tapestry.

It’s freezing. The December frost has crept a slow path up the castle walls, pried its way inside through cracks in windows and gaps between stones. Tonight it needles at Lily’s warming charms with icy fingers, peels her magic away layer by layer until winter drifts close enough to caress her skin. She recasts the charm with a whispered incantation and relaxes into the fresh warmth, leaning tiredly against the ancient stone at her back.

It won’t last for long, but it will be enough. It’s just past three A.M. Lily will be back in Gryffindor Tower by four.

It’s always like this: late nights, quiet hallways.

The long hand has just crept over the _2_ on her watch— _3:10_ —when he arrives. Regulus sweeps back the tapestry with a lit wand in his hand and a scowl on his pale face, and Lily jumps so violently that her skull cracks back against the wall.

“You’re _late_ ,” she hisses, rubbing the back of her head. “I almost thought you got caught.”

His lips curl even further, twisting into an ugly sneer as he crowds into the alcove with her. “I did,” he says, and lets the tapestry fall shut behind him. “Bloody Snape.”

Lily’s heart leaps into her throat. “Severus saw you leave? Reg, what if he—”

“He won’t. I’ve got too much on him, and he knows it.”

“As if you’d go spilling his secrets about.”

“You mean like I do for you?” Regulus wraps his free hand around the back of Lily’s neck, tangles his fingers into the fine hairs there. His skin is like ice.

“It’s different,” she whispers. “You know it’s different.” She resists the impulse to close her eyes, to lean into his touch, forcing herself instead to keep her gaze steady on his face. He looks almost skeletal in the bluish glow of his _Lumos_ , the shadows beneath his cheekbones slashing sharply downward, the hollows of his sunken eyes gaping like fathomless pits. Those grey, grey eyes. Those eyes that could just as well belong to Sirius.

She says, “Tell me.”

But he doesn’t. Instead he surges forward, capturing her frost-numb lips in a searing kiss.

Lily sucks in a breath, moves to step away, but Regulus’s hand at the back of her neck pulls her up to meet him. She hears his wand clatter to the floor, still lit, and then that hand makes its way to her waist, cold, deft fingers finding the gap between her skirt and sweater. Despite her anxiety, she relaxes into the familiar touch.

“Reg,” she manages between kisses. “Tell me what—tell me where Sev—”

“He’s spending Christmas with Evan Rosier,” he says, and lowers his head to suck soft bruises into the skin beneath her jaw. This late at night, his perfectly parted hair is always ruffled just out of place, silky black strands falling into his eyes like streams of ink. Lily catches some between her fingers. Regulus groans and kisses her again.

“They’ll be practicing a whole load of tasteless Yuletime rituals, I expect,” he says, panting.

Lily tilts her head back and whimpers. His mouth is so warm on her skin, practically ablaze, and she can feel the heat radiating from every press of his lips, rushing through her blood, pooling hot in her stomach. Lower.

“And is Rosier… is Severus going to be…?” She moves to brush a finger over Regulus’s forearm, but he catches her wrist tight in his hand before she can reach.

“No,” he says through his teeth. He’s stopped kissing her. “Not yet.”

“When?”

He’s quiet for a long moment. Then: “Easter, I think.”

Lily closes her eyes. She can feel tears rising at the corners, stinging, spilling over her lashes. She hasn’t spoken to Severus in over a year, but she’s expected this. A brand on his skin, the chasm between them deepened. It’s awful, and sickening, and inevitable.

She doesn’t beg Regulus to step in. She doesn’t ask him to just do _something_ , to intervene, to curse some bloody sanity into Severus before he’s past the point of no return. She knows he never would.

So she doesn’t say anything.

Instead she leans in to kiss him again, tears still flowing, aching and desperate to fill the sudden, agonizing emptiness in her gut with something hot and pleasurable instead.

Regulus meets her with a vengeance, their lips crashing together so violently that his teeth scrape hers.

It’s always like this: too fast, too desperate.

They hardly dare to speak. Lily doesn’t moan his name. Regulus doesn’t whisper hers. The alcove is filled with the sounds of harsh panting breaths, of wet lips sliding together, of blood rushing in ears. His hands are not gentle on her skin. There are calluses on his palms, and he moves with purpose, squeezing at her thighs, hiking up her skirt, dipping those long, cold fingers into her knickers to find her soaking.

He doesn’t whisper her name, but he lets his head drop forward to rest on her shoulder, a ragged groan torn from his throat. The sound goes straight to Lily’s core. She gasps, clenching around nothing, as he rubs a circle over her clit.

“Please,” she breathes into his ear. His body is strong against hers, pinning her firm against the wall, his narrow hips jerking. She can _feel_ how hard he is. She wants him inside her, wants him fucking her back against the stone, wants it so badly she could sob. There’s still tears tracking their way down her cheeks. “Please. I want—I need—”

“Shhh. I know you do,” he says soothingly. “Know what you need.” But rather than moving to undo his own belt, he drops to his knees, collecting his fallen wand as he goes. He whispers, _“Evanesco,”_ and suddenly Lily is bare beneath his silver gaze, her knickers vanished.

 _“Regulus!”_ She does say his name, then, an indignant hiss instead of a moan, but it morphs into something else entirely when he leans in to place a long, deliberate lick between her folds. He forces her legs further apart, lifts one creamy thigh to rest over his sweater-clad shoulder, granting him better access to her slit.

Lily’s head tips back against the wall, and Regulus kisses and suckles at her like a man dying of thirst, tongue dancing over her clit, red lips closing around her with perfect, precise suction. Every other part of him is cold, but his mouth is _burning_. It isn’t long before her fingers are grasping at the back of his hair, her heart thundering so hard she thinks it might burst. When he slips two fingers inside her, tongue still circling, she tips over the edge.

Her body goes rigid through her orgasm. Regulus barely waits to make sure she’s steady on her feet before he’s rising from his knees, unbuckling his belt, tearing open his trousers to free his aching cock. Lily’s muscles are still spasming when he hauls her up against the wall and thrusts inside her with a feral grunt.

It’s always like this: her legs around his waist, his teeth in her shoulder.

The sound of skin slapping together fills the air, too loud in the silence before dawn. Lily tries to hold back her own whimpers, but the stretch of Regulus’s cock is too much, slamming in and out of her, her body fluttering around him. When he kisses her again, she tastes herself on his lips.

“You’re _so_ ,” he gasps, and when he comes, Lily brushes the tears from his shadowed eyes and says, “I know.”

####

After, they sit on the ground behind the tapestry, and Lily runs her fingers through Regulus’s silky hair. He’s sweaty, now—they both are—and the warming charms she’d struggled with barely a half hour before felt like a distant memory. Soon she’ll make her careful way back to Gryffindor Tower, heal the purple marks from Regulus’ lips on her neck, scrub the scent of his cologne from her skin. He’ll slip back into the dungeons, avoid Severus’s distrustful glare, shut himself in his dorm to catch a few brief hours of restless sleep. In the halls between classes tomorrow, they won’t so much as look at one another. But for now, it’s this.

“Sirius?” he asks, his eyes closed.

Lily licks her lips. “Spending Christmas with the Potters.” She hesitates. He looks so relaxed this way—she feels awful to ruin it. But this is what they do.

It’s always like this: frustration released, secrets exchanged.

She swallows. “He said….”

“What?” Regulus looks up at her, and the calm has already drained from his expression, leaving it sharp and angry.

“He said things are better now that he’s living with his real family. And… and that if he ever finds himself back at Grimmauld Place, it’ll be to get revenge.”

Regulus’s jaw spasms, but he doesn’t speak. Only nods tightly.

Lily doesn’t offer to talk to Sirius. She doesn’t try to comfort Regulus, to make up little lies, to tell him everything will be alright in the end. She knows it won’t be.

So she doesn’t say anything.


End file.
